Damien tired himself out from using his punching bags to train. He flopped himself down on his small grass bed and almost fell asleep. If there was a mission today, he'd have to skip it. He trained viciously, almost bursting one of the sandbags open with his attacks. He was hot, tired, and unwilling to move at the moment.

"Hey, Damien?"

Pachi's voice made him get up. He saw a piece of paper in her paw. "What's that?"

"I came here to talk to you about it. It's a notice. A criminal broke out of prison and they're telling everyone to be careful." She handed him the notice.

"Citizens Beware! Escaped convict!

Abigail the Riolu has escaped from prison. Officials are doing all they can to apprehend this murderous criminal. If spotted, do not approach and alert the proper authorities immediately.

10,000 Poke reward for information leading to arrest."

"Murderous? Wow," Damien said, halfway conscious. "Oh, well. Hopefully they'll catch her." He laid back down on his bed.

"I'm worried about this, though… I mean, I'm afraid you might get confused for her and end up arrested," Pachi said somberly.

"Not if I stay here I won't," Damien said dryly, just wanting to be asleep for a while. "Besides, she can't look just like me. There's got to be some subtle differences, like eye color or something." He dozed off after that comment.

"You're just going to sleep during this?" Pachi said angrily, hitting him on his forehead.

"Hey! Stop! I've been training all day. I need rest," Damien said indignantly.

"You can rest later. We need to find this Abigail girl and get her turned in."

"You know what? I'll go warn Mike and Jess about it. Will that make you happy?" Damien asserted crankily.

"Maybe, if you didn't yell at me."

"Okay," he said, rubbing his eyes. "You wanna go with me?"

"Sure. I'll go with you. You might get injured, after all."

He picked himself up off the bed and grabbed his new treasure bag—the one the Croagunk gave him for fighting off Blaze and Bruti a couple of days ago. Pachi followed him out of the entrance and they headed out to find Jess and Mike.

They were going through a very heavily forested area. The trees were at least a hundred, if not a hundred and fifty feet tall. Damien felt a strange presence lurking about. Thinking he had heard a noise in the bushes behind him, Damien stopped in his tracks.

"What's wrong, Da—"

Before Pachi could finish, Damien had shushed her. He listened intently, put down the bag, then closed his eyes. He started to use his aura-sensing abilities. He came across a figure hiding in the bushes, who was ready to attack. The figure appeared to coil itself up, as if it were preparing to jump out and attack. Damien turned to face the Pokemon just as an Emolga leapt out, holding a small dagger and preparing to slash at Damien.

He quickly side-stepped to avoid the attack. The Emolga landed in the grass. Damien charged up an Aura Sphere, but it was cut off when the Emolga attacked again, this time clipping Damien's ear a little. The pain made Damien whimper, but he pulled it together and managed to block the Emolga by catching its head when it threw itself at him once more. Once he caught its head, he launched it backwards into a nearby tree. He finished his Aura Sphere and threw it. But the Emolga also charged up an Electro Ball and launched it. They came into contact and exploded, leaving a big cloud of smoke. Damien stared at it a moment, then he became startled when the Pokemon jumped at him and pinned him to a tree.

Damien took a hit to the back of his head, leaving him stunned. The Emolga took the knife and held it to his throat.

"Say goodbye, you worthless piece of criminal slime!"

Pachi could barely see through the smoke, but when it cleared enough to see Damien in serious trouble, Pachi was horrified.

"Let him go!"

The Emolga's expression faded into confusion. He looked at Damien's eyes. Then he slowly lowered the dagger and backed away from Damien, who brought himself back to reality.

"Look," the Emolga backed away further. "It was a misunderstanding. I just thought you were a criminal…"

"A criminal?" Damien asked, his head still hurting.

"Y-yeah…"

"It's exactly what I was worried about, Damien!" Pachi said sternly. "You almost got killed."

"Like I said, it was a misunderstanding. I never meant to hurt anyone," The Emolga said, sheathing his knife. "My name's Bolt, by the way."

Pachi crossed her stubby paws as best as she could. "'Misunderstanding' wasn't going to work if you really did kill him," she muttered to herself.

"Who are you guys?"

"I'm Damien, and my friend here is Pachi. We were on our way to see some friends of ours, to warn them about Abigail," Damien revealed.

"Really? I'm trying to catch her. I'm a bounty hunter, you see, and I was interested in the reward."

"Well," Damien said. "We're not trying to kill her, but we're interested too."

"Okay then, how about this: we work together and split the reward."

Damien thought about this. "Don't you want the full ten thousand?"

Bolt shrugged. "A little bit's better than none."

"Well, sure. We need all the help we can get. You alright with it, Pachi?"

Pachi was still crossed. "Maybe, but he should probably learn some self-control."

Damien had found Mike and Jess' home. It wasn't much; it was just a burrow in the bottom of a tree, offset by a bush on either side.

"Mike? Are you home?"

For a brief moment, there was nothing. Then a sleepy, rustled Mike poked his head out, flinching a little at the bright sunlight. "Ugh… what? I was sleeping!"

"Where's Jess?" Pachi asked.

"Out getting some berries. Why? Also, who's that?" Mike glared at Bolt.

"We're going to go after a criminal. We were going to grab you guys to help." Damien handed the poster to Mike.

"Sure, me maybe, but Jess can't go. Too dangerous."

Damien was wondering why he let her even join the team if something like this was "too dangerous". "Well, then she can stay home. We've got plenty of team members—and a non-member—so we should be able to get the criminal fairly easily."

"It all depends on the severity of the crime. This one's a murderer, so she's most likely a good fighter. I'll go ahead with you, but we'd better have a plan this time."